“What is the object you’ve held onto the longest?”

In Early February, Ethiopian-American photographer Yusuf Ahmed’s exhibition Between Nostalgia and Dreams opened at The Africa Center. Ahmed’s work centers on the experiences of African and Middle Eastern people and their diasporic communities. Previous work

includes the short film The Fly Collectors, which highlighted local volunteers in Senegal who are involved in the control and eradication of river blindness. Using film and photography as mediums for storytelling, Yusuf Ahmed captures the impact of our increasingly global world, tackling topics like migration, identity, memory, conservation, and health.

In Ahmed’s most recent contribution to the art world, he explores the sentimentality of objects and motivations for staying connected to memories and history. Ahmed highlights the stories of Black, brown, and queer individuals with immigrant identities; this choice offers a complex perspective on how memories can serve as both a comfortable connection to the past and a representation of more painful moments. Memories of home, belonging, community, insecurity, familial tension, and isolation co-exist in these sentimental objects, with each owner sharing how these objects represent who they were and who they are becoming.

Items like blankets, journals, stuffed animals, rocks, scissors, photos, and more are given life through the stories they represent and the story of the person who continues to carry each item through their life. This exhibition invites you to grow alongside each photo’s narrator and challenge your own notion of what objects can be important and why objects of sentimentality are an integral part of the human experience. And, as a treat, if you attend, you may see some familiar Tri-I faces among those who vulnerably shared their stories for this impactful collection.

The exhibition is free and open to the public at The Africa Center (1280 Fifth Avenue) until April 27, 2025.